After the War
by xJaguar
Summary: A young warrior mage makes his way out to adventure while the peace between the 3 races lasts, though he could've never expected some of the things that would happen along the way. Rated M for language and unknown material to come.
1. Prologue

It had all happened so fast, clarity ringing into minds as a scream resounded through the city, along with loud clanging of steel colliding against steel. The entire scene was a blur in his mind, and all he knew at the moment, is that there was danger… glowing green axes pressed hard against his back, a tiny form clutched to his chest, eyes wide. Blood spatters everywhere, the rising thick stench of iron, so powerful it had him doing a double take, wondering if he was swallowing blood, gagging on the horrible stench as it grew stronger. Looking down to the person he held close, a slight laugh barely escaping him, the terrified girl looking up at him.

"You okay?" She nodded slowly, eyes watering up.

"Momma… daddy…. They…" he swallowed hard, not wanting to nod, though turning his head slightly, he looked over to the bodies that were skewered and cut apart, the two bodies lying in pools of blood. The nod was slow, not wanting to nod at all. Glancing towards the killer, he set her down slowly, keeping an eye on the crazed warrior that was apparently trying to massacre every moving thing. It didn't take long to recognize him.

"S-shikyo… Why are you doin' this?" the words could barely escape him, the girl shaking in his grasp as he kept his gaze on the killer. "Why… we just became at peace with the Untamed and you begin a massacre?"

"Why are we at peace with these people?! They're part animal! Monsters!" It wasn't hard to realize this guy was one of the few psychotic people that didn't want any race other than human to dominate. "Look at the girl you're defending! She's got bunny ears! Why are you defending monsters?!"

"They're not monsters Shikyo! They have feelings too! They're just like anyone!!!" Eyes scanning over the room briefly, he noticed a little snow hare, its white fur stained with blood, the tiny creature not moving anymore, along with a small kitten, the lovable fluff ball cut in two pieces. "You've slaughtered anything that moves! Anything that isn't human! What're you trying to do?!"

"CLEANSE PANGU!!"

"From what?! Are you trying to kill everything? What do you want? Humans to be the dominant race?"

"That's how it's meant to be right!?!?!?!"

"No!!" He knew that these people had feelings, he couldn't understand why Shikyo was trying to destroy them all, and he even killed the animals. It was… horrifying. "You even killed the animals Shikyo!"

"I did it for PANGU!"

"Killing animals isn't for Pangu! That's something a true monster would do! Killing innocent people! Killing children and babies! Killing little animals!"

"I am not a monster!!! I'm doing what's good for this world!" the crazed warrior screamed at the top of his lungs, twirling his spear in his hand before jabbing at the other warrior, the girl shrieking again in fear, the axe warrior managing to pull his axes out on time to knock the attack away, the spear burrowing into the wall before being jerked back roughly. "It's for Pangu! How could you stand against me!" the axe warrior's eyes widened a little, grip on the shining axes tightening.

"Shikyo stop it! Stop it please!"

"No! The Untamed will die! And anyone who defends the—" his words died off, having swung down at the axe warrior again, only this time, the spear smashed into the axes, tip of the weapon breaking off, ricocheting back towards him. It spliced in through his eye, bouncing inside his skull, the spear warrior's remaining eye rolling back, blood spurting from the other as he fell backwards. The girl released a blood curdling scream as the now dead warrior hit the floor, the blood continuing to spurt out; a fountain spouting out blood and gore.

Reaching over to the girl, the axe warrior covered her eyes, picking her up and walking out of the building where others were starting to gather, the ones who had heard the screams and some who might've seen some of the massacre, or results. He frowned a little, knowing many had died. The crazed warrior had caught them all by surprise… The girl was clinging to him, literally, and her grip on his clothing tighter than ever. Prying her off gently, he set her down, kneeling down in front of her.

"Are you going to be okay, Kaida-chan?" sniffling, she nodded slowly.

"I thnk so onii-ch-chan…" Smiling softly, he raised a hand, cupping her cheek lightly.

"You were brave, your parents would be proud of you Kaida…"

"B-but onii-ch-chan… th-they d-dead…" with that said, she burst into uncontrollable sobs, rushing towards the axe warrior, bawling her little eyes out, never wanting to remember the horrific site she'd witnessed ever again. Scooping the child up into his arms, he tried to soothe her, unsure of how to really do that, but it was his best shot, eventually passing the girl to a mother before heading off to do some business. He needed to talk to some people, and he wanted to help clean up the damages. He was just glad he could save Kaida… but disappointed he wasn't able to save anyone else. Deaths needed to be counted, names of the dead listed, and if there were orphans to the now dead adults, homes for them found. Kaida was one of them. He could still remember when he first met the girl…

**A/N: Yes I did just stop there! Anyways if you saw this before by Takkun and Chi, this was actually written by me, but, they let me post up on their account until I could post on mine. I thank them very much, but, I will keep my writing here now. Now review, bad or good, I want to know what you think.**


	2. First Meeting

**A/N: I seem to have forgotten a disclaimer in the first chapter, no worries, I have one here! I do not own PW in any way shape or form. Also this is not entirely based on one server of PW. I do tend to lean towards My-en for class names, if you don't know them, here they are. Warrior is a blademaster, Mage is wizard, werefox is venomancer, werebeast is barbarian, elf priest is cleric, and elf archer is... well archer. Most of the characters are based off of my own characters, and some are made up completely, I will state when a character does not belong to me, at the bottom of the chapter.**

Here he was, now working on traveling as much as he could, for fun and experience, all across Pangu, all the three tribes now finally at peace with each other. It was so much easier to travel! His name was Kaen, a warrior child of an older warrior legend, supposedly, that had helped out greatly in the wars, and his mother, a powerful mage who had ended up saving his father's life in the war from critical injury. Morning Dew had become, suddenly, a very useful and powerful healing spell, even if casting was at times, terribly slow. It wasn't uncommon for warriors and mages to have children together… the oddity was for the child to show excessive skill in both areas, as a warrior, and as a mage. Most if not all children of a warrior and mage, were more leaning towards one class or the other. Could be too weak for warrior training, could be rather unable to work in the fields of magic, have the focus and concentration to form the spells, who knew. All that was known, is the children only had a shot of being one, or the other. Kaen, was one of those odd children. Being so, he trained in both, though often appeared as a warrior, not using magic often, but he would whenever he felt like it, which came in handy in travels, making setting fires easy, and such silly things as that. Upon arriving at the city, he couldn't help but grin, looking about and throwing his arms in the air, just… for his stomach to growl. His face dropped, arms flopping back down to his sides, a scowl forming at his lips when a snow hare dashed across the way, right in front of him. His first thought, food. It was a rabbit, and rabbits well, they could serve as food. Not a ton but they still were… some food. His thoughts of the snow hare for food were broken through as a girl chased after the rabbit, yelling "BUNNY". Not food… someone's pet… of course. As the rabbit dashed the other way, the girl still chasing the fluffy white ball, he sighed, rolling his eyes a little, and as the bunny came dashing the other way again, he squatted down, reaching out and catching the furry creature, who kept trying to hop, seeming confused as to why it had stopped moving. Straightening, he brought the confused fluff ball close, petting its ears back as it looked around wildly, confused still as to its sudden stop in movement.

"Be a good little bunny and don't run away from the girl…" he whispered, smiling a little as he continued to run his fingers through the soft fur, the girl bouncing up to him.

"Bunny!" she cried out, reaching her hands up to him to get her pet back, smiling up at him. "Thanku for catsing mah bunny!" He smiled, handing the bunny to her, finding the way she talked unbelievably cute.

"Don't let your bunny go running off like that…" he replied. "But it was no problem… You're welcome." Grinning a toothy grin at him, she nodded.

"I won't! I Kaida. Whas your name?" Oh wow… she had a problem with speech. "I these manyz!" with that said, she held up four fingers.

"Oh well it's nice to meet you Kaida, and wow you're a big girl aren't you?" She nodded with a smug grin. "My name's Kaen. I can't count my age on my fingers though, sorry." The little bunny girl had seemed disappointed that he couldn't count his age on his fingers, though he did hope that she could count higher than ten…You'd think 'Noo that's not possible' but yes it was, he already ran into too many people that did. "Oh Kaida, would you like a kitty? I found one on my way here but I can't take care of her." The bunny girl's eyes seem to brighten and glow, bouncing a little more and if she could've, she probably would've clapped her hands.

"A kitty? Really? For meh?" he nodded a little, laughing and pulling the curled up kitten out of his coat.

"She's sleeping, shh. It got cold sometimes so she liked to get all cozy in my coat." Inner pockets apparently made a great home for this kitten. He had to admit it felt weird sometimes… no not sometimes all the time, having a little body curled up in his coat, then the random mewing could drive him nuts sometimes. Trying to sleep then 'Mew'. Set the cat down somewhere and dig around for something to give it so it could shut up. One of these mews ended up with him losing most of his food and pack…

"A kitty?" she whispered, looking right at him, green orbs bright and glistening.

"Yes…" Did she seriously just whisper that? Holding the kitten out gingerly, he watched her as she set down the confused white fluff ball, taking the kitten into her arms and cuddling it in her shirt, before sliding the little thing into a shirt pocket. Just that moment had Kaen unable to wipe the stupid grin off his face, and also rather stupefied one. Grabbing the rabbit right as it jumped, he held it out to her. "There's your bunny before he can run away again."

"Thanku!" was the first thing she let out, taking the rabbit, then grabbing his hand and pulling him off in some direction. "Come on onii-chan!" He still had to admit that kitten was too big for her pocket… he had no idea how she even managed to slide it in there… the poor thing!

Upon reaching a house, Kaida ran inside with the two pets, hearing … well things he couldn't quite identify, and Kaida's voice telling someone that onii-chan gave her the kitty. He had somehow been able to pawn the kitten off on some little girl… oh geez.

**A/N: Chapter end. If you hadn't noticed, it's how the two first met, hope you liked, I want you to tell me what you think. I know that typically you can't just find a kitten out in the middle of no where, but I put into consideration that you can actually breed your pets, they won't be spawning out of midair, so more of the rare pets will be wondering around, very unlike PW. Review!**


	3. First Meeting, pt 2

**A/N: And I present to you, the next chapter!**

The following days became interesting, the small child Kaida following him around, his fluency in the Untamed language getting much better than when he came, the small girl's chatter making much more sense as he slowly improved. His speech got better as well, enough so that he could chat with others, and keep up with Kaida's constant chatter, though a couple times he mumbled that she had diarrhea of the mouth. Most of the Untamed adults knew the language of the humans, which Kaen had figured they would. Most everyone knew the human language, though the younger children would learn it later. Kaen knew for a fact that most humans didn't know the languages of the Untamed and Elves.

"And then daddy said that I could have a bunny so he took me out and got me one." Kaen only wondered why the girl had become like his own personal leech. She was so attached to him, and he could only guess why. "So he's such a good little bunny!" he watched her as she snuggled the bunny in her arms, rubbing behind his ears with her fingers, the tiny digits combing through the soft, white fur.

"Aren't you bunny enough?" he joked, smiling a little as both her ears stood up, before she grinned sheepishly, ears falling back behind her head.

"I are a bunny." He nodded, shaking his head, chuckling as the bunny in her arms suddenly jerked, trying to escape from her grasp again. "I think momma is gonna has a baby." She commented, Kaen glancing at her, then back at the house of the little girl's family, seeing her mother outside hanging wet items out to try, her stomach bugling out from under her sash that rested under her breast, much higher than most sashes are.

"She might be. You'll just have to wait and find out." At the moment, he could only think of how the hell birth would feel. He glanced back to the house again, seeing Kaida's father, and cringing a little. Kyo was a big guy, taller than Kaen. Of course, the Untamed men were big, tall, just large men in general. Much to Kaen's horror, the Untamed women were small, just tiny little things compared to the males. Now putting a big guy with a small woman, imagine child birth of a male child. Kaen cringed again, before turning back to Kaida, trying to get it out of his mind.

"Are you okay?" he nodded slowly, blinking several times as he tried to clear sudden images that were flashing in his mind. Not that blinking would clear them out at all. Watching as Kaida suddenly stood, grinning, he paused, puzzled."Lookie!"

"Okay…" he wasn't sure what she wanted him to watch, seeing a flurry of pink flower blossoms rise from nowhere, the little bunny girl changing shape to that of a fox. "Huh…?" he breathed, staring at her for a moment, doing a double take at the girl. "Where'd your ears go?" he questioned, picking her up and turning her small fox body around. "How the hell? What'd you do?!"

"It's a ability that werefoxes can use." She explained, grinning a foxy grin, Kaen's mind being totally blown and splattered inside his skull.

"Whoa… you're like a little kit…" he let out, looking her over. Indeed she was, a little fox body, all covered in bright orange-red fur, the tip of her little tail white, underbelly fur also a soft white color, paws a darker orange, what seemed to be a purple vapor surrounding her tiny paws as well. "Uhm… dazzling?" He had to admit, a talking fox, was just… weird…

"Pumme down!" jumping a little, the warrior set the small fox down, getting up and turning away.

"Hey I'm going to go get some food, all right?"

"Okay!" he almost twitched and fell over, the girl running around him, circling around and around, turning back to her humanoid form, a fox tail still on her.

"H-h-hey uhm you… tail…" he stammered a bit, eyes fixated on the tail that was attached to her still, even though she wasn't in a fox form anymore. Looking confused, she looked back, seeing the tail and grinning.

"Oops! Guess I has to work on it." He nodded a little, stomach suddenly queasy.

"I'm going to go get food!" he rushed, before dashing off, cloud sprinting off to the small tavern where he was staying, though upon arriving he realized something was horribly wrong. Starting with the door being kicked down. Or in, whatever it really was, it was just in pieces on the floor inside the little tavern. As soon as he drew close, getting within a meter or so from the broken door frame, it hit him like someone just slammed a sledge hammer in his face.

Blood, it was everywhere. It's very stench made his stomach churn, as he walked in slowly, looking around the little tavern of death, the smell only getting stronger as he did so. "Oh God…" he breathed, trying to not even breathe in through his nose, but it wasn't getting any better. Lifting a hand to block his mouth, he couldn't hold it back as he turned to the side by reflex, blowing chunks on the account of the stench, and possibly some of the horrifying sights.

"What happened…" he whispered, looking around more as he covered his nose and mouth, spying markings every now and then in the bodies and walls, speaking of a tale that only those in here had known, and died with the knowledge. Hearing a scream come from somewhere outside of the tavern, he turned, dashing out of the building and spying a little fox woman falling back away from her home, the little basket of check eggs in her arms falling to the ground as she flung her arms around to run away, screaming in utter horror.

Moving forward, he caught her before she could run away, holding her tightly in his grasp as she struggled against him, screaming "LET GO LET GO".

"No no it'll be okay! Calm down!" he didn't know what to do, holding her tighter as she burst into tears, suddenly finding himself carrying her whole weight as she began to collapse to her knees. Lowering her, he frowned, looking at the woman before glancing at the building. "Do you have any idea what happened..?" still bawling hysterically, the woman just shook her head, grabbing at his coat and burying her face in his chest, screaming over and over;

"He's dead he's dead he's deaaaaaadddd!!!!!"

"Listen, please, there might be others. I need your help!" This was useless he realized as he said it, the woman just bawling harder. "I'll be right back." Shit what the hell was going on?! Checking around in other houses, seeing random windows or doors broken, seeing they met the same fate as the tavern and the woman that lived close to it. Massacre. By now he had an idea of what exactly was doing this. A spear warrior. The cuts and slices on bodies were clean, swift, often looking like a simple flick of the wrist brought the blade from going sideways to straight up, and also several burn marks showed use of spear skills that only a spear warrior could use. Also the outstanding display of a house suddenly becoming impaled by ice, a skill called Glacial Spike, was a definite pointer to the killer being one of his own kind. A human, a warrior. Running towards where the house impaled by ice was, he slid to a stop as he heard a door get busted apart, screams, one of them Kaida's, he could distinctly hear sounds of what was more than apparently carnage in the making, the aftermath behind Kaen as he dashed towards the house.

**A/N: And that'll be the ending of our little flash back mode, and onward we shall go. Please review, I'd really like to know what you think!**


	4. Adoption and Norian

**A/N: Thanks Nick... n.n;; You were oh so helpful when I was trying to figure out and around a knot so I could keep this going. Anyways, onward, no longer in flashback, how fun.**

Shaking his head, dark blue eyes staring at the massive pile of bodies that were now being cremated, little Kaida by his side, holding his hand, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Onii-chan… does this mean I'm not gonna be a big sister?" hesitating for a moment, staring at the massive fire, eyes glassy with tears before he slowly nodded.

"Your mom was gonna have a baby… but you're right… you're not going to be a big sister anymore… I'm sorry." The little girl stared up at him for a long while, the raven haired warrior continuing to stare at the fire, feeling the girl's gaze on him.

Clean up for the… incident wasn't exactly the most fun, along with locating people, whether bodies, hidden babies, or scared children that ran and hid. Finding parents for the orphans was also a bit of a challenge. Not because there was so many children, but because of the staggering amount of adults killed. The final display of the Glacial Spike had been the key marker to the ending of the slaughter, but it wasn't soon enough to save a fairly large amount of the population.

"Well Kaen, I thank you for your help, even though you didn't have to help at all." The young warrior shook his head.

"It's the only thing I can think to do in apology for Shikyo doing this." He let out, "besides, you have been kind to me; I would've felt horrible if I didn't do anything to help you out. Thank you for letting me stay here Elder," he bowed a little, hair falling about his face as he did so.

"No need to be so formal right now, young Kaen." The elder still had smiled at his actions, the respect. "For the next little while would you mind helping us find some homes for the young ones? The sooner the better, gathering enough food for the collective amount of them with just a couple people is proving to be difficult, though if cared for by individual families, it would help get them all fed greatly." Kaen paused, stopping to think as he raised a hand to his chin, a soft 'hmm' escaping him before he let his hands down, looking up at the taller werebeast.

"May I take Kaida? I'll be her guardian, and I'll care for her just as well as anyone here would." This has caught the elder by surprise, but the look on the teen's face showed how serious he was about taking the girl on.

"Are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Why, Kaen, it's a lot of responsibility, I'm not sure you're fully aware of what you're getting into. And I'm aware that you're going to be leaving soon to continue traveling around. I don't think taking Kaida on would be such a good idea for you." That look, the elder knew it so well, just utter determination that was almost contagious. "I admire your determination but I must ask if you're completely sure about this. Would you be prepared to handle a four year old girl?"

"I'm ready to take on anything Elder." Oh yes his blue eyes were more determined than ever now. "Please may I? She probably knows me better than anyone else here now that her family is gone. How do you think she'd feel being placed in the care of people she doesn't know at all?"

"You have a point there…" indeed the girl was quite attached to the young warrior. She would follow him around chattering on like she never lost anything to talk about. And Kaen never once told her to shut up or get lost. "Well I suppose you may…" This brought on a small hiss of 'yes' from the warrior, who almost did a little victory dance right on the spot.

"You won't regret your decision Elder!"

He didn't know why he was doing this, or what compelled him to even try to take the child on, knowing that it was hard enough to just care for himself. One could only conclude that he was a little nuts.

"You should head back to Ethersword, Kaen. I saw your stuff scattered about in shreds along the road. Did some monster catch you by surprise?" stopping in his almost dance of victory, Kaen turned, finding himself face to face with an azure eyed tiger, who stared him down with a weight that made Kaen feel like his lungs were being crushed by a boat or something.

"Oh shut it Tora.." he let out softly, waving a hand in dismissal as the elder began talking to the larger tiger. Now the warrior wandered off, looking for Kaida, though it wasn't hard to spot her among a group of children, the girl standing out among the others like a sour thumb, white hair and little bunny ears popping up above her head, the others having darker colored hair, or just fur, and little cat, fox, or any other kind of ears there was. She was also the smallest of the group. Turning back to the elder, he made his way back to him.

"Elder, why is Kaida so much smaller compared to the other children?" both Tora and the elder stopped talking, looking over to the questioning warrior.

"She's a bunny Kaen. They're somewhat of a rare breed, but they are also the smallest of all the werefoxes. May I ask how many bunny werefoxes have you seen in this city in your past week of staying here?" blinking, Kaen paused, actually thinking about it, and realizing he barely saw any. Not even Kaida's mother was a bunny. Oh yes he wouldn't forget that tail of hers ever, and he was sure Kaida wouldn't either. "Kaida's great grandmother was a bunny as well; it runs through her family, that's how it goes. Runs through a couple of families but after this Kaida could be the last bunny." It made sense, and a good amount of the population had just gotten killed.

"All right… that makes sense…" the warrior began to turn, nodding to himself before looking back at the elder. "Thank you, Elder." Glancing to Tora, he perked a brow. "Where's the others, Tora?"

"They're in Ancient Dragon, repairing and such. Mizu needs a new armor top all together, it completely broke." Rolling his eyes, Kaen snickered.

"That duel must've done her in!" this time the tiger grinned, nodding.

"You have to admit she did a good job at kicking your ass, but you keep popping up with new tricks up your sleeve." Oh yes the tiger could never figure out how the warrior kept pulling such tricks out of his sleeves. He had even watched a Mizu's spring gush became completely nullified.

"Oh I do…" this brought a very mischievous grin to the warrior's face.

"If you keep it up, Karei's going to do something." Just at the mention of the red headed healer had Kaen's grin faded completely into a look of fear.

"Do something?"

"We'll talk about it later, for now, I need to talk to my fa- I mean the Elder…" although this slight slip up intrigued Kaen to a point of no return, he nodded a little, perking his brows before moving off to find the girl that was, in a sense, now his adoptive/foster daughter. As he walked off, he could hear a little bit before nothing at all, though after hearing what he heard, talk of the Wraiths and the recent massacre, he would've rather not heard anymore. Any talk of the Wraiths, and the attack that basically put Kaida under his care, was not his favorite subject.

The sudden booming sound and air rushing towards him had definitely succeeded in making Kaen's hair stand up on end, the warrior's face twitching, slight winds brushing passed him as he heard a slight curse and mumble. If he were any closer, he would've been smashed to pieces. Standing in the middle of the now settling dust, the ever so unpredictable Norian stood... coughing.

"Damn I missed."

Twitch. Turning to face the tiger, his jaw dropped slightly, before yelling; "WHAT THE HELL NORIAN!?" Oh he shouldn't've announced the tiger's name for all too hear, but at the moment he could careless, the glowing enchanted axes already off his back before they slammed into a second pair of axes, this time belonging to Tora.

"I ask that you don't kill my little brother Kaen…" he said softly before screaming emerged, a crowd of girls somehow forming, the name 'Norian' now echoing in his ears.

"Fine… he's gotta run anyways, but damn I didn't know there were still that many girls living here… or did they arrive anytime lately from the other towns?" Kaen grumbled, watching as Norian saluted then dashed off, the crowd following. "Hey Tora, you two look pretty much... alike... identical Kind of sort of... you know?" now the larger tiger was glaring down at him, a slight laugh escaping the warrior now. "Why does he have all the girls instead of living in your shadow?"

"He does live in my shadow." Puzzled, Kaen tilted his head to the side.

"How so?" the tiger definitely either had issues or something, but he had a very regal look to him Kaen now noticed, blinking several times as he wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him.

"Well…"

**A/N: Ooooh ended off right there, sorry I'm kind of tired, but hey I hope you enjoy, and please review! Also if you want you can check out the forums, throw up suggestions, characters, seeing as I've added in Nick's character XrateD, also known as Norian, and I'd really like to know what the character is like if you want them put in.**

**Other characters used:**

**Norian belongs to Nick**


	5. Women are worse than the RW Chief

**A/N: All right all, sorry for the delay in this chapter, but it's finally up, enjoy, and once again, I do not own Perfect World (any server). And please review!**

**~ Jaguar**

It turned out that asking how Norian lived in Tora's shadow wasn't a good question for the warrior to ask, though it answered the question… somehow. Even Kaen wasn't exactly sure how it ended up answering the question but over all somehow he knew what was going on, and showed Kaen a completely different side of his friend. He never would've guessed that the larger, often extremely fierce tiger would one day take his father's place as elder of the Untamed. Though he didn't really see why anyone would want to do such a thing like that, it seemed so stressful, but it was Tora doing this, not him. He acted like the entire idea of being elder was passed down from generation to generation, like some kind of family keepsake.

He had decided to take the tiger's words of /advice/ and travel up to Ethersword. The trip, was not going very nicely. Even though food and such had been scraped up, and he worked on getting things such as blankets made from animal skins, or what seemed to be little sleeping mats, and he did leave the city with them, just not like how he had planned. People were more than willing to /donate/ items like clothing and such as well to make sure little Kaida stayed warm and safe, and he received a never ending string of threats from the people that if anything happened to Kaida, he was dead. Well he could've never been so happy and thankful for such hospitality. Ever. In his life. Just the thought of the entire Untamed tribe/race or what not tracking him down because something bad happened to Kaida like she fell in a river, it was not appealing. In the very least. He was doomed to die a horrible death at the hands of the Untamed, he was certain of it.

The day after Tora's never-ending explanation to his question, had started out okay, he guessed. Having a pack again after so long was not a familiar feeling, much less one packed with anything and everything that Kaida could ever need, which most of it he actually left at the city. Over 100 changes of clothes was really not necessary. Tora had decided that he would accompany the two, and it also helped kill half the threats Kaen received, though there was still a lot of people being thankful and saying thank you for taking in the girl, he could only guess how busy they'd be with other orphans, and, or, mourning the death of loved ones.

One thing the warrior hadn't counted for was the fact that Kaida was a child, and she'd tire. It was that simple and he forgot about it, though it ended up with Kaida riding on Tora's back, the werebeast keeping pace with the warrior easily in tiger form, the little bunny girl more than delighted with this, apparently loving tigers and how soft Tora's fur was. Not that it kept her from snoozing as they started to reach into the borders of the swiftwind area, rain beginning to pour down in what seemed to be a never ending stream. It had both Tora and Kaen soaked to the bone, Kaida, not so much, dozing easily under the protection of Kaen's jacket.

"I didn't know my coat was water proof..." had been the only thing said for hours, other sounds including shoes and paws slushing through the water and much, mud squeaking as it squished into the spaces of Tora's paws, and the never ending suction on both paws and shoes.

"If we go up through here..." Kaen mumbled, pointing at a map, letting his finger trace out a trail off to the side of the road, "We should be okay, less mud, possibly less rain, and it's faster to Ethersword. Also there's a couple of places along the way that we could stop at."

"Kaen that goes by the Raged Wraith Chief..." the warrior shook his head.

"He's over here." He pointed to a spot on the map where it looked like there was a collection of rocks. A small detail that he forgot is there were several collections of rocks in the area. "So we'll be fine. The chief won't be anywhere near us and we should be able to pass without any problems." Nodding slowly, the tiger continued walking as the warrior placed the map away carefully, grumbling a little about the amount of stuff he had to carry that was just for Kaida.

Both Tora and Kaen rediscovered to themselves why traveling through this area was never recommended. It was a pain, hard, cold. Well cold mainly for Kaen, for Tora it was a large annoyance with mud squishing between his toes, sticking and causing his paws to get stuck, Kaen nearly shivering himself out of the extra coat he had. At this point in time, Kaen didn't even care that fur would be wet and more weight to carry, just looking at Tora, who's white and black fur was slick and if it were possible to be caked with water, that would definitely be the fur. Just looking at it, lying almost completely flat, slick, like it had been gel'd. It looked so much warmer than just his coat!

"I wonder if it would be all right to turn one of these trees into a giant fire…" the dark haired warrior grunted, a loud slurping sound being deafened by the rain. "Damn it my feet keep sticking in this mud!" At this rate, he'd just try to burn a tree down as an excuse to stop traveling and maybe get a little warm! In the midst of plotting, Tora stopped walking, standing there while the warrior kept walking, not e ven realizing the tiger had stopped, until a roar of laughter came up from behind him,

"All right how about we stop here? Night is about to break anyhow." For the first time, Kaen realized how close it was to night, though the visible surroundings didn't help much. Narrowing his azure eyes, he scowled, glaring at the tiger.

"Very funny. You would've just kept moving wouldn't you! Acting like it was still broad daylight!"

Ignored.

"Here, to keep the little one dry, help me clean this out a bit…" a rather large nook in the tree. Why was it Tora always thought of the good stuff? He made Kaen feel so stupid and useless.

"You know what maybe you should've adopted the girl!!!" he barked, moving over towards the tree, pulling an axe from his back and hacking into it, trying to make the opening into the inside of the tree bigger. That tiger just kept laughing at him though. To a point where he wondered if the tree was mocking him too. Once the opening was expanded enough the inside could be cleaned out, Kaida had been placed in carefully, Kaen stumbling upon his own little mystery of how she slept through the rain, him and Tora fighting, and hacking of the tree. A mystery he would never solve.

The wood from the… rather unfortunate mocking tree became fire wood, which Kaen was more than positively delighted to light up, and almost catch his clothing on fire in his over-zealous attempts to get warmer, faster. Damn clothes for being flammable. Damn skin too.

As time went by, Kaen had dozed off, the tiger just looking at him with a single raised brow, the fire crackling with the rain constantly landing on it, and little pockets or something in the wood. He even swore he saw something crawl out of the wood, which make his stomach queasy. Stretching his fore arms out, he yawned as he lied down, resting his head on his paws, staring at the fire in a dazed manner, wondering about how it kept going despite the rain pattering on it at a steady rate. A low growl caught his attention for a moment, though not long enough as he now slipping into the grips of sleep.

Screams awakening Kaen, the warrior jerked himself up to his feet, looking around groggily, Kaida screaming her tiny lungs off, thoroughly waking him up as he found what she was screaming about. On the other side of the fire, was the one thing he had hoped to avoid and fear, the Raged Wraith Chief. And Tora was the only thing keeping the pissed off Chief from killing Kaida and Kaen.

"Shit!" Sparing a glance over, Tora scowled.

"Bout damn time you woke up!!! You sleep like the dead!!!" Kaen cringed, knowing that Tora didn't typically swear so he was not happy. "Get her out of here!!! I run faster than you both I'll be fine!" Kaen wanted to rush and grab up Kaida and get the hell out of there but he knew if Tora stayed a little longer he would be too weak to get out of there.

"Like hell I am! You're gonna be too weak to run!" He wasn't sure why, but he did, grabbing one of his axes and chucking it at the warrior, biting his lip. "Ice warning…" he mumbled out, wishing he had some sort of magical tool to help channel the magic, but there wasn't time to even think much about it.

As he extended out his arms, a slicing boom sent a shock wave of water and dirt his way, Kaida screaming, again, Tora cursing loudly. "Go!" Both Kaen and Tora were stunned to hear the new voice, the warrior rushing over and grabbing Kaida as Norian had again made a… typical drop from the sky entrance into scene of trouble, Tora made to help his brother.

"Hang on tight!" the warrior whispered, breaking out into a run for his life, Kaida's life, and if he didn't move fast enough, the werebeasts' lives.

"Go you idiot! I thought you were smart but you're staying! GET OUTTA HERE!" Tora growled at his younger brother, twisting his paws as he hurled his body around, barking out a fine before stopping mid-swing, taking off after Kaen, a raging roar escaping him, drawing the attention of the Chief off his brother.

"You run now!" cursing, the younger tiger leapt into a run, dashing across the muddy ground after the sprinting warrior and his brother.

"WHY?!"

"Hey! I can't even down the Chief, get your ass away from there!" the younger scowled, sparing a glance back towards the Chief, growling loudly, lunging at the fiery wraith commander, trying to get in a ripping bite before running again. Seeing this, Tora slid to a halt, bounding towards the chief again as it screeched in fury, clawing away at Norian.

Kaen cursed, having glanced back to see how far the two werebeasts where behind, though seeing them back attacking the Chief, it made him mad, for one, but also he wanted to go back and help. "Sh—" he stopped, glancing down at Kaida, biting his tongue. His mind screamed to do something, but he had no idea what, but he couldn't just stand there or keep running. Setting Kaida down, he hurriedly told her to stay there, turning and dashing to the Chief.

"KAEN GO!" he scowled at the yelled command, but he wasn't about to listen.

"No!"

A second loud booming had Kaen wanting to yell out and hold his ears, though it was soon apparent that it wasn't someone smashing into the ground, it was something the two tigers hadn't notice. Magic.

"YOU TWO MOVE NOW!" the words left his lips before he even thought about it, grabbing at their fur and pulling back, both tigers growling loudly though everything stopped as the Chief burst into flames, all three staring incredulously and jumping away as electricity danced along the creature's skin, Kaen's senses going haywire at the use of metal magic. Bright lights and the air crackling around them, a roar of laughter bursting out from Tora as it became apparent at what was happening. They had been too slow moving for a couple impatient women.

"What's been taking you so long, damn I knew you guys were slow but not that slow." A nervous grin came to Kaen's features, recognizing the voice of the only mage he'd ever learned to really be scared of. Mizu. Another jolting use of metal magic, the Chief suddenly buzzing as it burst out from him, an arrow through the gut, the very wood itself spelled and enchanted to blow up in a bright display of metal magic. It wasn't the greatest time to sit around and chatter, though Tora kicked him literally on the ass, saying to go take care of Kaida and let the rest of them get the Chief.

Kaen's blood boiled.

He didn't say anything though, just doing what was told, grinding his teeth together a little bit as he went and made sure Kaida hadn't ran off.

Between two werebeasts, a furious mage, a cleric, and an archer, the Chief hadn't stayed around very long, dashing off as fast as its legs could carry it. And Kaen had a black haired archer staring down at him, her forest green eyes demanding what the hell was going on. Not that she even needed to open her mouth, Mizu was already on that, grabbing him by the jacket and shaking him.

"So you got yourself a title now, eh DemonBlade!?"

"What?" he let out, confused and dazed by her shaking. "How'd I get a title…?"

"Word in EtherSword is that you massacred almost the entire Untamed race." What?

"No that wasn't me!" he protested, looking to Tora for help, the tiger just shaking his head and going back to talking with Norian. "It was Shikyo! There's suspicion that the Wraiths are behind it! The guy had an infection in his heart that was part of the Wraiths, he was definitely under their control and he talked about the world like it was his girlfriend!"

"And how do you know there was an infection?"

"Because the health maniacs that wanted to learn a little more about anatomy cut him open!" It had been sick…

"Well I don't give a damn! People traveled to EtherSword with the news faster than you did!"

"Sorry!" honestly the look in the mage's eyes had Kaen fearing for his life, wondering if the woman was going to try and burn him down with magic or tie him up and shove him in a fire. Oh he knew she would do that if the others weren't around.

"Mizu calm down…" and never in his life had the warrior ever been so thankful for the cleric, the red head approaching him, he smiled at her and was about to say something until she made her approach more direct. Kaida. "Well hello there, what's your name?" Aww Kaen never knew she could sound so sweet and not evil. Mizu seemed completely surprised, seeing the little bunny girl for the first time, blinking and looking back at him.

"What'd you do Kaen, fuck some Untamed girl and have a baby?" scowling, the raven haired warrior glared down at Mizu, completely unamused.

"What do you think I can make something like that happen within a couple weeks? The girl's four years old! She's not mine!" the answer seemed to satisfy Mizu, though she still held her eyes on him, unbelieving of him before looking to the girl, who had attached herself to Kaen's leg, eyes wide, staring up at Mizu as if she were the devil's mistress. Mentally, Kean nodded, wishing he could just assure the girl that Mizu was indeed, the devil's mistress. Touching her hair lightly, he smiled a bit as she suddenly looked up at him, then to the cleric as he motioned to her.

"K-k-kaida…" she whispered, still holding the warrior's leg in a vice-like grip.

"That's a pretty name, my name's Kariu." To this the child smiled to, warrior relaxing a little as Kaida did, Mizu looking back at him again, eyes deep and dark, mysterious and untrusting.

"By the way Kaen, your mother wanted me to tell you she misses you and hopes to see you soon.." the mage mumbled, rolling her eyes then walking away.

"Let's go." Turning, he found himself curious as to who spoke, then realizing it had been the archer, also a very mysterious person. Whenever she looked at him, Kaen swore her eyes were glassy orbs that held the answers to all the mysteries of the world. Once he couldn't help but ask her what the meaning of life was, and she replied;

"42."


End file.
